


Not all in my head

by blcwriter



Category: Defying Gravity (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-31
Updated: 2009-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-23 11:52:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blcwriter/pseuds/blcwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After "Bacon," Maddux reflects.  Definite spoilers for this episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not all in my head

_**Fic: Not all in my head, Maddux Donner, PG-13, Defying Gravity**_  
Author:  blcwriter  
Title:  Not all in my head  
Words: 559  
Rating: PG-13, language  
Characters:  Maddux Donner, gen  
Summary: After "Bacon," Maddux reflects.  Definite spoilers for this episode.

 _I so do not need another damned fandom.  Oh well._

\--

"...Find it with your eyes."

Ev's talking back at me and I tell him he's got to cut in again and he's just _staring_ , his hand shaking, paused with this scalpel over her chest and he's hesitating-- and it's not in the way he did this morning when he was trying and failing to take my blood.  He's looking at her face-- but he's not seeing Paula.  He's seeing something else that's not there, except for him it is.

He's hesitating, she's bleeding _still_ and I repeat myself, because damnit, I've seen him do this before and I know what he has to do just from watching that one time. 

"Open her up Ev.  Come on."  More encouragement.  No-- hectoring, whatever works.  Nag him like Ev nagged that doctor five years ago.  "Damnit, save her."

And then he's in, and _fuck,_ so much blood _Jesus,_ Ev's still freaking out and now he can't find the damned bleed and and "I see it, there," but he's still watching her face "I can't, Donner, I can't"  and "Ev, use your hands" and _oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, this is disgusting, Jesus where is it,_ "It's right ... Oh God, I think I got it, I got it, help ..." 

Ev's eyes clear as he looks at me and then down at Paula and _now, now_ Ev's back here with us, and we've got the retractors and clamps and oh _thank God,_ I can get my hands out of poor Paula's guts.

I can only imagine what Goss and Eve and Claire are thinking back at Ground.  I can only imagine what everyone else here is thinking.  Me, though.  Ev, though.

That's different.

\--

Ted flips out on Jen-- way more than warranted-- when she tells him what she knows about Ev and his flashbacks.  Ted's been edgy-- more than he should be, more than he ever has been before, but that display there.  No-- he shouldn't have reacted that way.

\--

Ev tells us the story and yes-- it's a hard memory for him.  But he's not flashing back as he tells it, and he's able to get the story out without his voice going totally flat and dispassionate.  He's not acting like a man with the DTs, either.  Whatever dose he gave himself after he saw me this morning isn't what made him pause back  there with Paula.

His voice is steady as he denies that it's DTs or PTSD that caused what happened in there.  _"... this was a full-blown hallucination."_

I know what he saw.  That little girl in Ramallah-- she's _Sharon._ He was trying to fix Paula like I was trying to fix the water filtration system and he saw his Sharon instead of Paula right there on the table.

Ted doesn't say anything, and maybe Ev doesn't notice.  I wouldn't blame him.  I've been feeling pretty twitchy about the whole thing myself.  But ... Ted swallowed hard after Ev was done talking, and he _knows_ something, something he's not saying, something that's making him edgy and terse.  Ted knows what's causing this, and he's not sharing it out-- probably under orders.  Goddamned Goss and his secrets.

That one hard bob of Ted's adam's apple in his throat when Ev's finished speaking-- it proves something I'd both dreaded and hoped.  That dream-- of me and Ted on this mission?  That dream about Zoe?  Those weren't dreams.  And those sandblasted pipes?  Sharon? 

Not all in my head.

I've never been so worried to know I'm not nuts.

  



End file.
